Stochastic optimization of an electromagnetic actuator by means of Dirichlet boundary condition iteration

In this paper optimization of the cross section of the coils of an axisymme tric electromagnetic actuator is performed by means of mo stochastic method s: Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing. The finite element formulati on of the electromagnetic problems is based on the magnetic vector potentia l. The hybrid FEM/DBCI (Dirichlet Boundary Condition Iteration) method is u sed to deal with the unbounded nature of the field problem and to reduce th e computing effort of the whole optimization.